By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Star
Members of the Independent Redistricting Commission want a federal court to block them from being questioned about the legislative maps they drew.
In legal papers filed in U.S. District Court, attorneys for the five commissioners said their actions are protected by “legislative privilege,” a legal concept that generally prevents lawmakers from being questioned or sued about how they reached a decision. And they want a three-judge panel hearing the case to preclude lawyers for the challengers from being allowed to ask them about it in pretrial depositions.
But Joe Kanefield, one of the commission’s attorneys, said this is just the first step toward asking the federal judges to bar challengers from putting commissioners on the stand at trial to get them to explain why they did what they did.
There is a long line of cases saying some actions of legislators are off-limits to outside questioning. And there already have been court rulings affirming commissioners, in drafting the maps, are acting in a legislative capacity.
But there also are other rulings that back the contention not everything the commissioners did can be considered a legislative action. Actions that were strictly administrative can be subject to legal scrutiny.
